Sunday, 24 November 2013

World is
becoming more and more digital every day. Big Data is one of those mega trends
that will impact everyone in one way or another. Welcome to everyday world of "Big Data," the explosions of facts,
maps, products, books, calls, references, smartphone apps, trends, videos,
advertisements, surveys — all of the sense and nonsense that is literally at
your fingertips, 24-7, every day from now on.

Big Data is all that everything we do in our lives to leave
a digital trace (or data), which we (and others) can use and analyze for
betterment of our lives.

Here are some real-life examples of how big data is used
today right from cradle to grave:

In hospitals,
pediatric unit looking after premature and sick babies is generating a
live steam of every heartbeat. It then combines them with historical data to
identify patterns. Based on the analysis the system can detect infections even
before the baby would show any visible symptoms, which allows early intervention
and treatment.

Wearable fitness wristbands
from Nike & Fitbit collects daily data about how fast we walk or jog,
how many steps we have taken, the calories we have burnt each day, our sleeping
patterns and other streams of data which are then combined with our health
records by doctors & insurance companies for better wellness programs.

SmartThings,
a company helps in Smart Homes with installing motion, moisture and other sensors in your
home to collect data & keep you posted on what is happening at home &
control all the devices via an app on the iPhone while you are away.

While we daily
drive on the roads, our smartphones sends our location information &
how fast we are moving, which then combined with real time traffics to
give us optimal routes to avoid traffics. Even combined with our location apps
like AroundMe gives you nearby restaurants, banks, gas stations and lot
more.

In Retail , when we go
for shopping our loyalty card data is combined with our purchase history
& social media data to give us coupons, discounts and personalized
offers.

Finally in IoT, companies
like EarlySense are developing wellness & sleep monitoring sensors
that go under the bed mattresses & automatically detects, monitors, and
records heart rates, breathing rates, motion and sleep activity as soon as
a person gets into bed. The data collected by the sensor is wirelessly
sent to smart phones and tablets, where it can be further analyzed.

Some other creative uses of Big data are:

Transit
Time NYC, an interactive map developed by WNYC,
lets New Yorkers click a spot in any of the city's five boroughs for an
estimate of subway or train travel times. They pulled data from open
source itinerary platform OpentripPlanner & combined it with publicly
downloadable subway schedule to create 4 million virtual trips.

FluNearYou
app developed by American Public Health Association surveys users to get a
sense of their symptoms stores and analyzes vast amount of resulting data
and then produces reports to show users the flu activity in their local
region.

The FBI is
combining data from social media, CCTV cameras, phone calls and texts to
track down criminals and predict the next terrorist attack.

·Presidential campaigns of Obama in 2012 used Big data Analytics to collect vast
amounts of voter’s data from phone calls & surveys, coupled with top notch
analytical engines allowed him to micro target the individual voters that were
most likely going to vote in his favor.

Google’s
self-driving car is analyzing a gigantic amount of data from sensor and
cameras in real time to stay on the road safely.

·Smart TVs and set-top-boxes are able to track what you are watching, for
how long and even detect how many people sit in front of the TV combined with
social sentiments to determine the channel popularity.

In Greece, the
government is using Google Earth to see who can afford a swimming pool in
their back yard, and then matching that against tax records.

Ultimately, you and I are going to benefit from Big data Analytics. Our
economies are getting stronger when the banks have a better understanding of
risk. Our taxes are lower when the government lowers its fraud expenses. Our
communities are becoming healthier when disease outbreaks are pinpointed and
treated earlier.